


Surviving

by atlanticslide



Series: Just Keep Breathing [1]
Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:44:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/pseuds/atlanticslide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s never been one for poetic words, but he tends to think of their relationship like the tide, ebbing and flowing, back and forth – or maybe it’s more like waves against the shore, being drawn in and pushed away, crashing and breaking against rocks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surviving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/gifts).



> So, I don't know how this happened. I sat down to write, fully intending to skim over most of the stuff between John Paul and Craig leaving in 2008 and John Paul's return last year, and then several thousand words later I wasn't even out of that first year. Which I realize was not quite what you were asking for when you said you wanted to see them back together, so I split it up into a few parts. They're meant to take place in the same universe, but can be read on their own, so if you want to skip straight to the last part, which is set more recently, you can read that without reading this first part.

He’s never been one for poetic words, but he tends to think of their relationship like the tide, ebbing and flowing, back and forth – or maybe it’s more like waves against the shore, being drawn in and pushed away, crashing and breaking against rocks. 

It’s sort of stupid, though, so he’s never given voice to it.

They’re good, at first. Things are great. They wander the city and walk through the streets holding hands, watch the leaves fall in St. Stephen’s Green, eat chocolate at Butler’s, drink pints at the pubs near Trinity. Craig drags John Paul around like John Paul’s a tourist, takes him to the Guinness Storehouse and shows him the unimpressive Dublin Castle. They kick a ball around Pheonix Park and they dance at clubs – or John Paul dances, mostly, and Craig watches him with a smile. 

When they get home at night, to Craig’s flat, they fuck on Craig’s beaten up, second-hand bed. Craig touches all the places he remembers, all the spots that he knows John Paul loves being touched, like the insides of his elbows and just under his jaw and the small of his back, the place on his side that makes him squirm. He squirms again now whenever Craig drags his hand down and it thrills Craig to see that he still knows these things. He stares at John Paul as much as he can whenever he’s managed to get John Paul’s clothes off, and it occurs to him late one night that he’s taking stock, looking for differences, trying to find new marks or freckles or scars that weren’t there a year ago.

John Paul is quieter now, quieter even than when they’d been together a few weeks ago. They’ve only ever done this in secret, hidden away in one of their bedrooms where they’ve always had to keep one ear on the door and be ready to spring apart at a moment’s notice if someone walked in unexpectedly (like Sarah, so maybe they were never quite as prepared as Craig thought they were…). So there’s always been a need for a certain amount of stifling their noise, until now. And it was always just that, stifling the moans and shouts and words that wanted to spill from their lips. Craig could see it on John Paul’s face back then, how he’d grit his teeth and bite back a whine when Craig touched him in just the right spot, or bite his lip and kept a groan in his throat when Craig thrust in hard. Craig had always wanted so badly to get John Paul somewhere where they wouldn’t have to hide and be quiet, where he could hear every single word and groan and gasp that John Paul thought to utter. He imagined it loads of times, when they were together and last year when he was alone and even on the flight back here with John Paul’s hand tucked inside his. He’s been rather desperate to hear it all, in fact.

Now, though, John Paul stares at him with wide eyes and clenches his hands and digs his fingers into Craig’s skin and opens his mouth, but doesn’t let out any noise beyond breathy gasps. Craig talks, more than he ever really has in bed, asks, “this alright?” and “how’s that feel?” and tells John Paul, “you feel so fuckin’ good,” and “god, I missed you,” and “you’re so hot when you come.” And John Paul stares at him all the while and nods and runs his tongue behind Craig’s ear in that way that no one else has ever done for him and doesn’t say anything at all.

After, they lie together with their hands or their arms or their knees touching and stare at each other and Craig feels calm like he hasn’t been since he moved here, maybe earlier. Maybe ever.

Quiet as he is, John Paul smiles a lot, and Craig can see the tightness in it, knows in the back of his mind that John Paul must be thinking about Kieron at least a little as he lies there with Craig, but John Paul never says anything and it’s easy enough for Craig to pretend that there are no regrets between them.

So it’s good, at first. Craig goes back to school and John Paul looks for work, picking up shifts here and there cleaning glasses at a club while he tries to talk the manager into letting him DJ. Craig can see their life together forming, taking root. The life he’d almost had with Sarah, the life he envisioned alone without either Sarah or John Paul, neither of them can compare to this.

“I love you,” Craig says one evening when John Paul has come to the campus to pick him up and walk home with him. It’s a chilly evening, rain misting down from dark skies and Craig has John Paul’s hands grasped between his own, ostensibly to warm them up but mostly because he wants to make sure John Paul knows that things are different now; that he won’t shy away from John Paul’s touch or save kisses or words of affection for private anymore, really, he won’t.

John Paul looks up at him, surprised, and his eyes go wet like he’s about to cry, but he smiles and leans forward to kiss Craig instead. Craig’s not sure what to make of the expression, but the kiss is nice, really nice, and it feels good just to realize that no one is whooping at them or giving them any hassle, or even really noticing them at all. It’s _okay_ for him to kiss his boyfriend in the middle of campus. He’s still a bit jittery about it all, but the jittery feels sort of good, so he takes his hands from John Paul’s and wraps his arms around John Paul’s shoulders.

-

John Paul returns from Hollyoaks looking beaten and tired. Craig meets him at the bus station and takes the bag from John Paul’s shoulders without a word. He’s not sure what to say. Mum had phoned him before John Paul’s short, perfunctory message giving his ferry info. She explained in a shaking voice all about Darren and Jack, about a man called Niall and an explosion and “Tina’s dead, love. Seems that nice priest, Kieron, the one who John Paul had – well, it seems he didn’t kill himself after all.” 

Craig can’t even process the information about Jack after that. He feels a bit sick about Niall and Kieron and Tina, sicker still when he spots John Paul emerging from his bus with a pale face and a bruise around his eye. 

John Paul has nightmares for days but won’t talk about any of it. He doesn’t talk about much of anything, really. He sits across from Craig at the breakfast table, stone-faced, while Craig’s flatmates fight distantly over the video game controllers. Craig’s still not sure what to say.

They do all the same things, because Craig doesn’t know what else to do but ask if John Paul wants to get some chocolate or go get a pint or take a walk through the park and John Paul just nods along to whatever he suggests with an absent sort of expression on his face. They sit and toss pieces of bread into the pond at St. Stephen’s, but there are no ducks around to come eat it. John Paul stares blandly at the water and Craig’s chest aches.

“You can tell me, you know,” he says, and John Paul looks up at him like he’d forgotten Craig was there.

“It’s alright, is what I mean,” Craig continues, unsure. “I don’t mind to hear about – about Kieron, and Tina, and Niall and what happened at the church. In case you wanted to talk about it but weren’t sure that you could.”

John Paul turns to look back at the water and rips up another chunk of bread into tiny pieces in his hands. “There’s nothing much to say.”

Craig looks out over the pond too, watches the dried up leaves scattered across it, brown and dead and floating listlessly. When he tries to take John Paul’s hand, John Paul pulls it away and shoves both hands into his pockets, seems to sink right down into his coat as he slouches back against the bench.

They don’t fuck much lately, and when they do, it’s quiet and tense and uncomfortable, usually only because Craig asks if John Paul wants to and John Paul shrugs in response and kisses Craig and pushes his hands up under Craig’s shirt, and it all feels wrong and kind of unpleasant. John Paul’s hands seem perpetually cold and they stutter over Craig’s skin as if he’s suddenly a stranger. He closes his eyes most of the time, quiet even in his expressions, and it makes Craig wonder what exactly he’s thinking about when they have sex.

John Paul sleeps with his back to Craig most nights and doesn’t touch him at all anymore during the day, even when Craig tries to reach out. 

Craig phones Steph but stops short of complaining to her about how he doesn’t know what to do when he hears her voice falter and trip over her tears. He tells her that John Paul’s doing alright when she calms enough to ask after him.

One night, after the bruise on John Paul’s eye has finally faded away, Craig is staring into the darkness of his bedroom – _their_ bedroom, by all titles, but it doesn’t really feel that way anymore since John Paul returned from Hollyoaks – trying to fall asleep when he hears a long exhale of breath from John Paul’s side of the bed.

“I’m really sorry, Craig,” John Paul says in a voice so small and soft that Craig’s not sure he’s actually awake and hearing it. Maybe this is just a dream. Maybe Craig’s already asleep and didn’t realize it. 

But he turns over and finds himself staring into John Paul’s eyes, wide awake in the darkness. Craig wants to reach across the space between them but he can’t quite be sure that John Paul won’t pull back, and he’s already so far away.

“For what?” Craig asks, almost adding _love_ to the end, because endearments only ever tend to slip out when he’s a little sleepy.

John Paul’s eyes close and he breathes out another long, heavy sigh.

“I don’t… I’m not who you…” he starts and stops and then squeezes his eyes shut even tighter, like he can’t get the words out.

“John Paul?” Craig asks softly, and now he does reach over to touch his fingertips to John Paul’s cheek gently. One of John Paul’s hands comes up to grasp Craig’s arm almost immediately, gripping it tight like Craig might disappear at any moment.

“I’m sorry there’s something… _wrong_ , and I can’t fix it.” 

His voice is heavy, his face pinched and scrunched up. Craig leans forward to rest his forehead against John Paul’s, then shuffles the rest of his body across the bed so that he can wrap an arm around John Paul’s back, throw one leg over his hip.

“It’s okay,” he whispers into John Paul’s hairline, even though he’s not really sure what he’s saying _okay_ to.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” John Paul says, his voice still soft but thick now with tears as he begins to cry in earnest. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Craig replies, confused, and strokes John Paul’s back up and down.

John Paul clenches his fist in Craig’s shirt. “I can’t stop thinking about – I don’t know what to do, how to stop it, and I don’t want you to – ”

He’s shaking now and can’t get through a sentence so Craig just keeps stroking him and breathing, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” into John Paul’s skin because he can’t think of what else to do.

“Craig,” John Paul says, pressing his damp face into Craig’s neck.

“It’s okay.”

John Paul doesn’t say anything more after that, just cries and shakes mostly silently as Craig strokes his back and worries.

They don’t speak about it in the morning, and John Paul is right back to the withdrawn, downcast version of himself he’s been for these past few weeks. When Craig gets home later after his last class of the day John Paul isn’t there, and he doesn’t answer his mobile when Craig phones and then texts twice and then phones again. He gives up and goes to bed near midnight, and in the morning he finds John Paul asleep on the couch in the living room.

“Where were you last night?” Craig asks, standing over the couch as John Paul blinks up at him blearily.

“Um.” He swallows, smacks his lips, would look rather cute with the slightly confused expression and mussed hair if Craig wasn’t so irritated with him right now. “At work? The club, I – they asked me to DJ, fill in for Jamie, he got sick last night…” he trails off, waves a hand in front of him like that should be the end of it.

“I called you,” Craig says, folding his arms across his chest, and almost says _I was worried, you know_ but he doesn’t want to sound like a nag.

John Paul shrugs and scratches the back of his head. “Must not’ve heard it. Sorry, mate.”

 _I’m not your mate, I’m your fucking boyfriend_ , Craig wants to say, but he keeps a lid on that one too and just sighs instead, turns to head for the kitchen.

“Just,” Craig says tightly, his hands clenched on the carton of milk as he glares down at the kitchen counter. “Just, let me know next time if you’re going to stay out so late.”

John Paul goes out more and more over the coming days, dropping Craig texts like “back later,” which makes Craig feel itchy and nervous, unable to get too angry because of all John Paul’s lost and because at least John Paul’s out and working, and because John Paul’s finally got some steady work DJing, and because Craig’s afraid to rock the boat when they’ve only been back together for a couple of months and he wants so badly for this to work.

Steph emails him, tells him that she’s taking Tom on holiday in Scotland, asks if he and John Paul would like to come meet them. Craig sends her a quick reply that, thanks, but they probably can’t go anywhere right now, “loads of schoolwork, you know”. Really it’s that things feel so strange and precarious between him and John Paul right now, he’s not sure how a trip would really go, especially with Steph, given her relationship with Niall. He doesn’t mention any of it to John Paul.

They spend time together on the weekends, but it’s more tense than fun, John Paul alternating between snappish and quiet. Craig can’t make heads or tails of it and mostly just keeps talking to fill up the silences. 

“I could come by and watch tomorrow, if you like,” Craig tells him one afternoon as the sip Guinness at the pub near the flat. John Paul’s been staring at his pint for half an hour now without saying much beyond telling Craig about the set he’s lined up for tomorrow at his regular club, and Craig has grown antsy.

“You’ve got that paper to write,” John Paul replies dully without looking up.

“Won’t take me all night,” Craig replies, trying to sound upbeat. “You’ll be mixing for a few hours, yeah? I could come by later and – ”

“You won’t know anyone, you’ll just be bored.”

“Soooo,” Craig drawls out with an eyeroll, still smiling but not really feeling it anymore. “Introduce me around, then. What, are you ashamed of me or something? Afraid I’ll embarrass you with my terrible taste in music?”

He’s joking, but John Paul doesn’t laugh.

“Of course not.”

“So? Why don’t you want me to come then?”

“Jesus, Craig, just leave it alright? We don’t need to be attached at the hip twenty-four-seven!” John Paul snaps before he gets up from the table and slouches out of the pub, leaving his Guinness and Craig behind.

Craig thinks about going after him, but mostly he’s just sort of bewildered, so he sits and finishes his pint and then finishes off the rest of John Paul’s as well. John Paul is gone when Craig gets back to the flat and doesn’t come home again until early in the morning when Craig should be asleep but isn’t. He doesn’t say anything, though, doesn’t turn around when John Paul crawls into bed beside him and sighs audibly.

A few days later comes a spectacular row and Craig can’t hold the words back any longer. 

They’re at a club, not one that John Paul regularly DJs at, and they’re dancing, and having a few drinks, and it’s feeling pretty good, pretty okay, with his arm around John Paul’s shoulders and John Paul smiling that smile that’s probably at least half-alcohol induced but is still nice to see. Craig’s pretty much the worst dancer in the world, he can admit that, but he’s willing to put up with the embarrassment of it if only to be close to John Paul, have some fun with him for a while.

And then Craig goes up to the bar to get another round and when he turns back to find John Paul on the dancefloor again a few minutes later, there’s a scuffle happening and bouncers are running towards the crowd and John Paul is right there in the middle of it, his fists in another guy’s jacket and a dark sneer on his face that makes him almost unrecognizable to Craig. The other guy is shouting something that Craig can’t quite make out and swinging a fist, connects squarely with John Paul’s jaw so that John Paul stumbles backwards, pulling the guy with him. They crash and then roll against the floor, other dancers moving back to make way for them, and John Paul gets a punch in to the other guy’s stomach and takes a punch from the guy to his chin before the bouncers grab them and haul them both up, stumbling, to their feet. 

Craig drops their drinks on the bar and pushes his way through the crowd to follow after them, up the stairs and out the door into the cool nighttime air. John Paul is dumped unceremoniously onto the sidewalk while his opponent is dragged off around the corner, presumably to be left where the two can’t easily get back to their fight. The bouncers stalk off back inside the club and Craig is left alone, standing over John Paul as John Paul breathes heavily, angrily, wiping away the blood trickling from his mouth.

Craig reaches down a hand for him, but John Paul ignores it and struggles to his feet on his own. Craig’s stomach is churning and he rubs his forehead as John Paul walks off down the street. Craig follows after him a moment later.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about?” he asks tightly, balling up his fists to shove into his pockets.

John Paul’s shoulders look tense, his whole body radiating anger, and his jaw clenches as Craig speaks to him. Craig hasn’t seen him this furious in a long time, maybe not since Craig himself was the one doing the beating back in school. He always feels a lingering twinge of guilt when he thinks about that day, and John Paul’s bruised face in the days after, and it’s another one of those things that makes Craig wonder if he just should let it go, let John Paul be. Not pick the fight that he knows is coming if he presses John Paul right now.

But he presses anyway, because he’s starting to move past worry into simply being _scared_ for John Paul.

“Hey,” he says, and catches John Paul’s arm to force him to stop walking. John Paul turns to face him but doesn’t look him in the eye, glaring instead at the ground between them.

“What happened back there?” Craig asks again, his hand still clutching John Paul’s elbow.

“Nothing,” John Paul replies, kind of mumbled and irritated. He shrugs his arm, trying to shake Craig off, but Craig holds onto him. “Just a fight, is all. It’s no big deal.”

“It _is_ a big deal,” Craig insists, shaking John Paul a little. “Look at your face! Look what that guy did to you!”

He lets go of John Paul to gesture at the red splotches on his cheek and his chin that will surely be bruises by the morning. John Paul looks up at him then and shrugs mildly, like he’s distracted.

“Gave him worse than he gave me,” he replies, and Craig suddenly feels like he doesn’t know the man in front of him at all.

“I just don’t get it,” Craig tries for reasonable, calm. “Did he say something to you? Did he do something?”

“What’s it matter? It was just a fight, it happens.”

John Paul tries to start walking again, but Craig darts in front of him to block his path.

“It _matters_ , it – I don’t understand what’s going on with you.”

“Oh come off it, Craig.” John Paul rolls his eyes and shoves his hands in his pockets. He looks pale and cold and still a little wild-eyed and Craig wants as much to wrap his arms around John Paul as to shove him away.

“No, I won’t. I’m worried about you.” Craig takes a deep breath, wants to catch John Paul’s eye again and show him just how much he’s worried, but John Paul’s staring out at the river beside them. “You’re not sleeping well and you’re drinking a lot, more than you normally do, and – and you’re coming home late – ”

“I _work_ , Craig, I work at night,” John Paul snaps.

“And you’re angry with me, and you’re picking fights in bars, and you just seem really _angry_ a lot.”

“ _Of course I’m fucking angry_!” John Paul shouts, a huge burst of sudden emotion aimed right at Craig so that Craig feels like he has to take a step back to escape it. “My sister is _dead_ , my fiancé was murdered while I was off fucking _you_! I could have ended it, ended _him_ back there in the church, I had it right there in my hand and I wanted to kill him so badly but my mum – and I am so bloody _pissed off_ that I’ll never get the chance now!”

Craig realizes after a moment that he’s breathing heavily, fast – nervous, panicky sort of gasps of air, his eyes widening as John Paul yells. The whole situation feels wildly out of control and he doesn’t know what the hell to do.

“You – but that’s not you, none of this is you,” Craig stutters out, and tries to reach out and touch John Paul, just press his fingers into John Paul’s cheek or his arm, shaking now – just something to ground him and to calm him down. “You don’t go round… _killing_ people, or picking fights with strangers in clubs, you – ”

“How the hell would you know?” John Paul shouts back at him, and then shoves Craig abruptly backwards. “You don’t know me anymore, _you weren’t there_!”

“In the church?”

“This whole _year!_ You _left me_ at the airport – ”

“Now wait a moment,” Craig snaps back, on the defensive now. “ _You_ left _me_ , remember? You were the one who walked away from me and went back home and left me to come here by myself.”

“Because you couldn’t even fucking _touch me_ in public!” John Paul yells back, and Craig fleetingly wonders if people are going to come staring at them any moment now. “And then when you suddenly decide that you’re ready to be honest with yourself you just come back and you fuck up my whole _life_ , Craig!”

“It’s not like you were so – so hesitant!” Craig fires back. He points a finger in John Paul’s face, punctuating each angry word. “You were right there with me, you wanted me just as much as I wanted you!”

“And I shouldn’t’ve been!” John Paul yells, and Craig’s known somewhere in the back of his mind for the last few minutes – maybe for the last few weeks or even since September – that this accusation would be coming.

“He’s dead because I was too busy screwing around with _you_!”

And still, it hurts like a punch to his face, like being hit with a car, maybe.

“John Paul…” he starts quietly, suddenly deflated and all of his anger gone.

Maybe it’s the same for John Paul, because he’s got tears in his eyes, in his voice, all of a sudden. “If I’d been there.” His voice breaks and it hurts something deep in Craig’s chest. “If I’d been there, instead of with you, he’d still be alive.”

Craig shakes his head, tries again to touch John Paul, but John Paul again rebuffs him, swats his hand away and takes a step back.

“You don’t know that – Niall could’ve killed you both, probably would’ve tried.”

“I don’t care,” John Paul says quietly, sounding miserable.

“ _Don’t_ say that,” Craig replies sharply.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” John Paul shakes his head. “None of it matters.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Craig says. He’s frustrated and tired and desperate to go back in time and fix this, fix everything, because he knows that he’s the one John Paul wants, has always wanted, that it never would have lasted with John Paul and Kieron anyway, that John Paul _wanted_ to leave Kieron for Craig, even if things didn’t go like they’d expected.

“What can I do?” he says again, and John Paul shakes his head.

“There’s nothing you can do, Craig. There’s nothing. You’ve already done it.”

And Craig is angry all over again.

“It was _your_ choice too, you know!” He throws it in John Paul’s face and has a grim sense of satisfaction to see John Paul’s eyes widen, sees him get angry again in return. They’ve always been good at hurting each other, the two of them. “You wanted me just as much as I wanted you that day, and you would’ve left him anyway! _I_ was the one you wanted, not him.”

“You don’t know _anything_ about him!” yells John Paul. “Don’t talk about it as if you have any clue about our relationship!”

“I know that you didn’t want to be with him! Not like you wanted – like you want me.”

“You are so fucking full of yourself,” John Paul spits out, quiet and venomous. 

Craig wants to grab John Paul’s head, hold onto the sides of his face and get in close and just dare John Paul like he did months ago – back on that day. Maybe it was a mistake back then, knowing what he does now about what Niall was doing to Kieron at that same moment, but Craig still just can’t bring himself to be sorry, and he’s so bloody pissed at Kieron, even though he’s dead. It feels like a competition even though he knows, in his calmer moments, that it’s really not.

“Tell me I’m wrong, then. Tell me it’s not me you want more than _anyone_ , that it wasn’t me you were thinking about every time you were with him.”

And at that, John Paul turns on his heel and walks off away from Craig, and Craig wars with himself between guilt and anger.

“Wait, John Paul!” Craig calls after him, but John Paul doesn’t stop or even turn to look back at him, and Craig shifts right back over to fury.

“Fine!” he shouts, turning to kick a signpost next to him and cursing when he hurts his foot on it.

He stomps home and rips off his jacket, balling it up and throwing it hard as he can against the corner of the bedroom, breathing hard and angry and wishing, sort of, that he could fight someone too. He’s not even really sure what he’s angry at, or who – he’d like to punch Kieron square in that nice-bloke nose of his, but Kieron’s dead, and it makes him feel guilty just for thinking it. It hurts to think that John Paul may have loved someone else, even though they were living separate lives at the time, even though Craig has been in love with someone else other than John Paul.

He kicks at a chair, sends it toppling over to the floor, and then grabs a picture frame from off of his desk – doesn’t care which picture it is and pays no attention – and smashes it against the wall.

There’s a brief knock on his bedroom door before one of his flatmates lets himself in, glancing from the broken glass littering the floor to Craig, angry and heaving breaths.

“Everything alright, mate?” Kevin asks quietly, hovering in the doorframe.

Craig closes his eyes, fists his hands in his hair, takes a deep breath of air. “I’m fine,” he mumbles, and then opens his eyes a moment later to see Kevin still standing at the door.

“Really, Kev, I’m fine. It’s fine. Sorry for the noise.”

Kevin nods and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Craig flops on his back on the bed, sprawls out with his legs splayed across the sheets, and covers his eyes with his arms. Eventually he falls asleep like that, thinking about phoning John Paul but never getting around to it.

In the morning Craig finds John Paul asleep on the couch once again, but doesn’t bother to wake him up this time, feeling angry and nervous all over again upon first glance of John Paul’s bruised, sleeping face.

He heads back into the bedroom instead, packs a bag and pulls on clean clothes, grabs his coat from the heap on the floor and scrawls a quick note telling John Paul he’ll be back in a few days. He phones Steph on his way to the bus station.

-

John Paul is there at the airport when Craig walks out of the terminal. He’s got his hands in his pockets, a scarf wrapped so tightly around his neck that it’s cover his face up to his nose, and he’s staring hard at the floor. Craig’s surprised to see him here, and he stops walking for a moment, wondering if maybe he’s seeing things. He hasn’t been quite sure what to expect upon his return – for them to have another row, for John Paul to be gone completely maybe. They haven’t spoken since that night, even as Craig thought constantly of calling John Paul before Niall turned up and then wanted desperately to hear John Paul’s voice every step of the trip back to Hollyoaks with Steph and Tom.

What he hadn’t really expected was for John Paul to be standing waiting, quiet and pensive, for him when he got off his plane.

John Paul looks up then, catching sight of Craig, and neither one moves for a long moment, maybe too afraid of what will come next to take a step forward. At least, that’s what it is for Craig. He’s not really sure if he can still read John Paul correctly anymore.

John Paul is the one to break the uneasy truce, to take the first steps across neutral territory and approach Craig. He takes the bag from Craig’s shoulder and drops it on the ground next to them.

“Hi,” he says, brief and quiet, muffled by his scarf before he pulls it away from his mouth.

“Hi,” Craig parrots back. Then, “How’d you know when I was coming?”

“Nancy. She called this morning. Guess the news about Niall’s all over the village.” 

Craig nods, unsure what to say. Nervous. They’re not quite looking at one another, each sort of staring past each other, and Craig feels it suddenly, the weight of what Niall’s done to John Paul. That psycho hurt a lot of people, including Steph, and Craig hates him for that even beyond the man’s death, but John Paul, in particular, has lost a lot in the past few months due to this long-lost, psycho of a brother. That pale and bruised face back in October was the least of it; it almost feels like John Paul should look even more beaten up, more bruised and broken, and Craig doesn’t quite know how to speak to him now, especially after the things they said to each other before he left.

“Is he really – ” John Paul begins, and then stops and swallows audibly. “You saw it? You saw his – his body?”

He meets Craig’s eye, then, and Craig meets his and nods.

“Yeah. He’s really gone.” He can’t quite form the words _I watched him fall from the cliff and saw him crumpled and broken on the ground_ , so he leaves it at that.

John Paul nods as tears form in his eyes. 

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to do it,” Craig says, though he’s not really sure why. Maybe to sting John Paul, but he’s immediately sorry for it when John Paul closes his eyes and inhales a sharp breath like he’s just been slapped.

“Craig, I – I don’t know why I said that – ”

“No,” Craig cuts him off, gentler now. “I shouldn’t’ve – you said it ‘cause you were angry, and you have every right to be angry.”

John Paul shakes his head. “It’s not just that. You know, when I thought Kieron had killed himself, I thought – I felt devastated, and I went over it and over it, trying to think what I could’ve done different. But even though I felt guilty I knew you were right, that it was his choice in the end.”

There’s a pit in Craig’s stomach, thinking about how wrong he was, how wrong they all were. How Niall was just walking around free as a bird – _comforting_ John Paul and Myra and telling Steph how much he loved her… he gets it now, that anger, how it can well up so quickly and suddenly in John Paul, seemingly at random. How one little stray thought or comment could take him right back there, analyzing every movement of Niall’s and wanting so badly to be able to throttle him.

He grabs onto John Paul’s hand without thinking, and John Paul opens his eyes, surprised, and grips Craig’s fingers right back. It’s calming. Craig takes a breath and tries to push Niall away from his mind.

“It’s just,” John Paul continues. “It’s just that none of it was true. And now I think back on it and I go over it and over it again and now all I can think is what if I’d left my house sooner. What if you’d never followed me home. What if we’d kept talking and I’d texted Kieron then, or called him.”

“John Paul…” Craig squeezes his fingers. He doesn’t want to hear this, not really; it’s too painful and awful to even think about it, and it makes him a bit angry too, even apart from Niall, worrying that Kieron will always be there between them simply because he died and happened to do so while John Paul was messing about with Craig.

“I thought I was getting past it, you know, moving on,” John Paul continues, his voice that same sort of shaky as back in September. “But I don’t know how to cope with it now. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it, stop feeling guilty.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Craig tells him.

“But I could’ve stopped it. So many times, so many things I did – choices _I_ made led him there… Niall was right, I _am_ selfish.”

“ _No_ ,” Craig says, sort of desperate. “Nothing he said was right, or true, or – he was _crazy_ , John Paul.” He almost makes a crack about how Niall turned out not much different than he would’ve if he’d actually been raised a McQueen, but he manages to bite his tongue just in time.

John Paul shakes his head and closes his eyes again, but a few tears escape, run quickly down his face. Craig can’t help it anymore; he pulls John Paul in close and wraps an arm around him, digs his fingers into John Paul’s shoulder, and John Paul goes willingly, pressing his face into Craig’s neck. It feels a little better.

“I’m sorry,” he says into Craig’s neck, an echo of that night weeks ago. “I’m sorry I can’t get past it.”

Craig takes a long breath and says, as carefully as he can, “I want you. I want to _be_ with you. But I don’t think I can go on the rest of my life being compared to Kieron.”

“I know,” John Paul replies, quiet and strained, nodding a bit against Craig’s shoulder. He turns his head so he’s speaking more clearly and says, “The funny thing is, I think if you’d never come back to Hollyoaks, or we’d never gone up to my room that day, if I’d pushed you away – I’d probably have spent my whole life with Kieron, comparing him to you.”

And there it is, then. Craig’s always known it was true. It’s not ego, really, he just knows that he’ll never love anyone like he loves John Paul, and he knows it’s the same for him with John Paul. It’s just good to hear it out loud.

“It’s not that I’m comparing you to him,” John Paul continues after a long moment. “It’s just that I can’t just pretend he never existed, you know? That he wasn’t important to me.”

“Okay,” Craig replies, even though that tiny bit of jealousy that will probably always be there lurking beneath the surface flares up for a brief moment.

“My mum told me, right after Kieron died,” John Paul says, pulling back just enough so that he can look Craig in the eye, one hand resting on the back of Craig’s neck. Craig still has the old familiar anxious feeling at being touched so intimately by John Paul out there where anyone can see and can point and judge, but he’s pretty sure he’s getting over it. At least he knows now that being with John Paul is worth it.

“She said I shouldn’t let guilt ruin my life.” John Paul doesn’t _quite_ look himself yet, but that hint of something, that spark he usually has in his face, is lurking in there somewhere.

“Good advice,” Craig replies, nodding, a little scared to say too much, like he might send John Paul running or something.

“She has her moments. And she’s right, of course. I don’t know how to get over it all, exactly, but I want to _try_.”

“So,” Craig shrugs, running one hand up and down John Paul’s side. “Let’s try then.”

John Paul breathes out a quick burst of laughter, smiling almost all the way up to his eyes. “Simple as that?”

“Well, you know. ‘Course our lives are _usually_ pretty simple, this case we may have to work a little harder at it.”

John Paul smiles and nods and looks a bit serious all at once, somehow, and Craig leans forward to kiss him on the top of his head.

“We will,” John Paul says. “We’ll work harder. I know we said there’s no guarantees, but I really don’t want to fuck it all up.”

“Me neither,” Craig agrees because yeah, they could – they almost did – but the thing is that he knows from the past year that if John Paul isn’t it for him then he doesn’t really know who possibly could be.

“So I guess,” Craig continues, hesitant. Unsure. For all that he’s lived on his own away from his family for a while now, it’s only now that it hits him that he’s really not a kid anymore. Adults work on their problems and talk about things. He doesn’t want to be that dumb kid who runs off when he panics or keeps secrets because he’s too scared to actually face any problems anymore. “Talk to each other, yeah?”

“Tell each other what we’re thinking,” John Paul nods.

Craig grins. “And here I thought dating a bloke would get me out of all that girly shit like sharing our _feelings_.”

“Right, right, we _never_ talk about our feelings,” John Paul laughs and reaches down to take Craig’s hand and lace their fingers together. “Except when you’re _desperately_ telling me how much you love me and I’m giving you a grand speech at the train station.”

Craig smiles, leaning in to rest his forehead against John Paul’s, letting his eyes fall closed. “I do love you, you know,” he says, just to be sure that John Paul does know it. He can feel John Paul’s smile even without being able to see him.

“‘Course you do.” 

And then Craig loves him even more.

-

They have nightmares together now, waking each other by turn. Not every night, and not always at the same time, but there are a number of nights when Craig gasps himself awake, Niall’s hands falling away from his neck as he comes up to reality, and feels John Paul shaking beside him in his sleep. Or when he sees Steph tumble over the cliffside just before he feels a gentle touch on his face and he blinks his eyes open to see John Paul staring at him in the quiet safety of their bedroom.

“He had a knife to my throat,” Craig tells John Paul one night after he’s been pulled out of it. 

John Paul’s hand finds Craig’s and squeezes it tightly.

Craig whispers, unable to ever really say it out loud in the daylight, “I thought he was gonna kill me. For – for a moment I was sure I was going to die.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” John Paul whispers back harshly, and Craig’s stomach drops for a moment, thinking that he shouldn’t have told this, of course John Paul doesn’t want to hear it, before John Paul continues, “Don’t you ever, ever die on me. I don’t think I could survive it.”

It’s probably hyperbole, but Craig thinks it means something, that John Paul was wrecked by Kieron’s death yet managed to weather it, but wouldn’t be able to survive Craig’s.

Maybe someday Craig will be able to stop comparing himself to a dead man.

But for now he takes the small victory and the small comfort and shuffles closer to John Paul, pressing his face into John Paul’s neck. 

“I won’t,” he says quietly. Then, louder, he says, “Chin up, mate, I’d just come back as a ghost and haunt you, anyway. You’ll never be rid of me.”

John Paul snorts airily and says, “Good,” before leaning down to kiss him.

-

There’s a box in the back of their bedroom closet. Craig’s never seen John Paul take it out and open it, but he’s known about it since John Paul first moved in, though he’s never looked inside of it. 

He comes across it again a few weeks after his return, after Scotland and Niall and their talk and agreeing to be better for each other. He’s never looked before, but now he’s desperate to know exactly what’s in there that John Paul himself never even seems to look at. 

So he takes a glance around the room, reassuring himself that John Paul isn’t home and won’t walk in and catch him, lifts up the lid slowly and takes a peek inside.

At the top of the box he finds a jumper, too big to be John Paul’s. He puts it aside and finds a stack of books with unfamiliar titles, flips through them to see hurriedly written notes in the margins done in handwriting he doesn’t recognize. A stack of letters in ripped-open envelopes, bound together with a clip. A set of keys. A bunch of photos, different sizes and types of photo paper, like they were taken at different times but then shoved all together in an envelope. Pictures of John Paul with Kieron, smiling, looking happy with Kieron’s arm around him or John Paul’s head against Kieron’s shoulder or sitting next to each other in what looks like The Dog; pictures of Kieron alone, smiling at someone – John Paul, probably – behind the camera, asleep on a couch with his mouth open and a book laid against his chest, naked from the waist up in bed, sheets pooled around him and eyes half-lidded.

There’s a bible at the bottom of the stack of books, with a postcard sticking out from between the pages, and Craig pulls it out, sees a picture of a sandy beach and blue ocean and quickly shoves it back into the book, unable to turn it over and see what’s written on the back.

He’s tempted to open up the letters, see who they’re from and who they’re to and get a better glimpse at this life of John Paul’s that Craig still doesn’t know very much about, but in the end he can’t bring himself too. His stomach is churning with some unknown, unidentifiable feeling, something he can’t quite put words to – anxious or sad, but not quite either. He stacks the books back into the box and then the photos next to the books and the keys and letters, folding the jumper back up last of all to put on top. Possessions of a dead man and keepsakes of John Paul’s life with him. 

Craig sort of wants to be angry about it, that it’s here at all, that John Paul saved all of these things, but he doesn’t really feel it. He puts the box back where he found it, back in the corner of the closet and out of easy sight as the discomfort in his stomach eases.

It’s just how things are, it’s just something that will always be there with them, and maybe that’s okay.

-

They don’t go back to Hollyoaks for Christmas. John Paul confesses quietly that he can’t quite face the holiday at home with Tina missing, and Craig’s never particularly interested in going back to the village, so instead they celebrate with a tiny tree in their flat, just the two of them as nearly everyone they know has gone off to see family or travel until January. John Paul tries to make eggnog and it tastes terrible but he just laughs when Craig spits it out into the sink, and Craig laughs along with him as he wipes his mouth with his arm. 

“I tried to warn you my mum’s recipe is a little strong,” John Paul grins.

“That’s not strong, mate, that’s just plain shit,” Craig says, laughing as he turns to the shelf above the refrigerator to hunt for a bottle of wine. He pulls out a bottle of red, a little dusty and probably cheap – probably belonging to one of their flatmates, but he doesn’t care – and then pulls down two glasses. “Trust me, I come from a family of pub-owners.”

“Trust _me_ ,” John Paul shoots back as he holds one of the glasses out for Craig to fill up. “I come from a family of borderline alcoholics.”

They sit close together on the couch and watch the Doctor Who Christmas special which Craig really doesn’t give a toss about but John Paul eats up. They finish off the bottle of wine and don’t make a move to switch off the television once the episode is over, instead just leaning into one another and staring quietly at the screen as whatever is up next comes on. Craig leans his head against John Paul’s and John Paul leans his head against Craig’s and Craig thinks, _I’m really glad you’re alive,_ but doesn’t say it out loud.

For New Year’s John Paul DJs the first three hours at his regular club while Craig dances with a few mates and shares glances with John Paul across the dancefloor, grinning all the while. John Paul looks _good_ up there, in his element, and Craig feels pretty fucking lucky, all things considered. It’s terrible how things all went down, but he’ll never be sorry for going back to fight for John Paul.

He offers John Paul a drink when John Paul’s set is over and they meet up on the dancefloor, but John Paul declines, and instead takes Craig’s drink out of his hand and puts it on a table nearby before grabbing Craig’s now empty hand and twining their fingers together. He pulls Craig through the throng of people and out into the night.

“It’s nearing eleven, don’t you want to go back in for the countdown?” Craig asks as they emerge out onto the street.

“Dunno,” John Paul replies with a shrug, keeping hold of Craig’s hand. “Didn’t really feel like being in there with the crowd anymore.”

He pauses and looks at Craig, then at the ground, and looks a bit unhappy. Craig’s thrown back into their arguments of weeks ago, when John Paul seemed perpetually tense and anxious, and he worries for a moment that they’ve gotten nowhere in all of this, when John Paul speaks again.

“I’m not sure I really like being around so many people at the moment,” he says, soft and sort of hesitant, like maybe he’s ashamed. “I like being up there, I love spinning, it’s just – I dunno, I feel sort of uncomfortable squashed in with all those people. Just had to get out for a bit, get some air.”

“Hey,” Craig says sort of upbeat, waving his free hand around stupidly. “I hate crowds. Of the two of us you’re the real social one; if it wasn’t for you I’d probably split most of my time between class and home.” Even though he knows it’s probably something more than just the noise and busyness of the club that made John Paul want to leave. 

John Paul smiles down at the ground as if he knows what Craig is thinking, and then leans up to kiss Craig. Craig touches John Paul’s chin and kisses him back, opens his mouth when John Paul leans in.

They pull away after a moment and Craig feels pretty proud of himself for mostly ignoring the other people on the street who aren’t even paying them any attention.

They meander down to the river and walk along it for a while, mostly not talking. John Paul’s fingers are cold even in Craig’s grasp – he’s forgotten his gloves again – so Craig shoves their clasped hands into his coat pocket, which keeps John Paul even closer, and thinks back to last New Year’s, spent mostly in a drunken fog and trying desperately to get it up for this gorgeous girl from his economics class but unable to stop thinking about someone else.

They pass by a shop that’s still open even as the hour nears midnight and a sudden brilliance strikes him.

“Wait here a moment,” he tells John Paul, and dashes into the shop. It takes a few minutes, but he finds what he’s looking for way in a back corner next to cleaning supplies and paint brushes, and stuffs it into his pocket after paying.

John Paul’s brow is furrowed in that endearing way he has, and before he can ask what it is Craig bought, Craig waves him off and says, “I’ve got an idea,” and leads John Paul off down the street.

They arrive at the Ha’penny Bridge with the last few minutes of 2008 ticking away and of course there’s a load of other people milling about, some on the bridge, some wandering by the river. Craig ignores them and walks up to stop underneath one of the arches.

“ _What_ are we doing here?” John Paul asks as Craig looks up at the bundles of padlocks clasped to the arch and to the railing beside it.

He turns to John Paul and pulls the padlock he bought from the shop out of his pocket. John Paul looks down at it and breaks into a slow grin, one that he’s clearly trying to prevent from taking over his whole face. The corner of his mouth is tugging insistently as he looks back up at Craig, and the sight makes Craig’s heart beat a little faster.

“What’s this then?” John Paul asks.

“It’s a duck,” he replies, rolling his eyes, and thrusts his hand out to thump softly against John Paul’s chest. “What’s it look like?”

“Looks like quite the romantic gesture,” replies John Paul with a grin that says he’s rather impressed, even if his tone is sarcastic.

“Hey.” Craig holds his hands against his chest, mockingly offending. “I can be romantic when I want to be. _Very_ romantic!”

“Your idea of romance usually is more like eating microwave dinners in bed while watching football.”

“Well that’s just good sense, really. They’re quick to make and everyone likes eating in bed, especially when there’s football on.”

John Paul laughs at that and Craig continues, “I do have my moments of creativity, though.”

“That you do,” John Paul agrees with a nod.

Craig’s forgotten a pen or marker or anything of the sort, so they borrow one off of another couple putting up their own lock who smile warmly at them and tell them to keep the marker as they walk off arm-in-arm together. John Paul writes their names on the lock while Craig picks out a good spot, somewhere they’ll be able to spot it again as they walk by later. He locks it on and then John Paul tosses the key into the river and all in all it’s quite a stupid little tradition. “Unbreakable love” and that nonsense, dumb as those half-and-half heart necklaces kids in school give to their girlfriends.

But John Paul likes that stuff – not the stupid necklaces, but gestures, romance. He’d never admit it, but he’s a bit of a sap, and Craig is well aware of it, so it’s worth it in the end when John Paul leans into him, rests his head against Craig’s as they stand on the bridge and watch the fireworks go off and listen to people shout “Happy New Year!” around them. His hand finds John Paul’s again, their fingers tangled together, and he squeezes, then throws his arm around John Paul’s shoulder and pulls him in for a long kiss, his tongue darting quickly out to taste John Paul’s upper lip.

And anyway, Craig does sort of like the idea of having something out here on display just for the two of them. He’s not sure he’ll ever be totally comfortable shouting from the rooftops his love for another man, but at the same time, he does sort of want people to know that he’s in love, that _they’re_ in love with each other. He’s not quite sure how to reconcile it all, wanting to let it be known how much he loves John Paul, sort of wanting just to be normal and _tell_ people like anyone else about how much he loves John Paul, how much they’ve been through to get here together, but terrified at the idea of people knowing as if once the whole world knows then it’ll just be one step closer to some big gay wedding or something.

So at least there’s times like these, when he can be happy and calm and content just to stand close and watch fireworks together and put up some sign telling people that “John Paul + Craig” love each other, even if it’s a small one.

They’re in bed later when Craig rolls onto his side and brushes his fingers up and down John Paul’s arm and whispers into the dark room, “What you said earlier. About me and romance…”

“Oh, Craig, you know I was only joking,” John Paul replies quickly, turning to face him.

“No, yeah, I know. It’s just, I’ve been thinking about it.” He stops there, unsure exactly where he’s going with this.

“You’ve been thinking what about it?” John Paul presses, inching closer across the bed and slinging his arm across Craig’s waist.

Craig shrugs awkwardly against the bed. “I dunno, just… I guess it’s like I never knew I could…” he sighs, sort of confused with himself. John Paul touches his face, runs his palm over Craig’s cheek until Craig takes a breath and begins again.

“Back when we were together before, when I was still with Sarah, I had this idea or something. That I could be… _normal_ with her, have the nice, happy relationship, but if I wanted – if I wanted _you_ then it couldn’t be… couldn’t be the same, I guess.”

The room is dark and quiet and Craig can barely see John Paul’s eyes in front of him. He’s not sure what John Paul might be thinking and it makes him nervous. But John Paul’s hand is still there, still touching him, so Craig pushes on.

“I think it was like, I thought that other people, it’s okay if they want to have some big gay romance and if two blokes want to date and have a regular relationship together, but that I couldn’t have that because it just wasn’t _me_.”

“You had the regular relationship with Sarah and I was your bit on the side,” John Paul says, and he doesn’t sound angry or upset or anything, really, except sort of neutral. Calm.

Still, Craig worries. “John Paul – ”

“Craig, it’s okay,” John Paul cuts him off, tapping his fingertips against Craig’s cheekbone the way he does sometimes when he’s amused by something Craig’s said. “It’s not like I didn’t know that even back then.”

John Paul says it light and easy, like it’s not a big deal, but it brings all of that guilt Craig had felt during those months roaring back and he closes his eyes and turns his face into John Paul’s hand.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like that.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Craig insists, opening his eyes again to try and find John Paul’s in the darkness. “For a long time I thought I couldn’t have with you what I had with Sarah, that I couldn’t… just go for a fancy dinner or do things like that with you. Wasn’t until I was forced to choose that I finally thought that maybe I could.”

And that’s all he’d been wanting to say. He doesn’t offer anything more, because delving further down this train of takes him to question what he’d have done if maybe he’d realized this all sooner, and he doesn’t have answers for that. When it all came to a head, he chose John Paul and he’d make the same choice in a second, but he did love Sarah. 

Mostly what it comes down to is that he’s always been a selfish bastard and he knows it. It just took him way too long to realize he couldn’t actually have everything he’d wanted.

“Well,” John Paul says after a moment, moving his hand from Craig’s face down to Craig’s back, up under his t-shirt. “If you’re really so keen on making it up to me, I can think of a few ways…”

Craig can hear the grin in his voice and he returns it with one of his one as he says, “Oh really?” and John Paul slings one leg over Craig’s waist to straddle him and Craig holds him by the hips and tries to roll them over so that he’s on top and they end up wrestling around and laughing and making a mess of the bed and all in all, it’s a pretty great start to the new year.

**-end-**


End file.
